


it's a better place since you came along

by taizi



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Gen, Kid Fic, Pre-Canon, Self-Indulgent, Taako Adopts Angus McDonald, Taako Backstory (The Adventure Zone), rated for taako's language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26815750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: “So, you must be here about the job,” the old man goes on. “To tell you the truth, I’d just about given up on finding a decent nanny. When can you start?”Taako stares at him. There’s an alarm klaxon blaring in the back of his brain, along with a shrill inner voice advising him to “abort, motherfucker,abort!”In which Taako answers a general “help wanted” ad that actually changes his entire stupid life.
Relationships: Angus McDonald & Taako
Comments: 142
Kudos: 730





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey fellas its me, jumping on the bandwagon like 4 years late :)
> 
> the title is borrowed from rachel platten's [better place](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvI9PuGorwI&ab_channel=RachelPlattenVEVO) ~~but heads up the music video makes me cry lmao~~

There’s a baby crying somewhere. 

Taako, left waiting in the foyer by a harried maid, has nothing else to do but tap a foot, twist one of the rings on one of his fingers, and count the long seconds that the plaintive wail continues to echo through the cavernous house. 

Listen, he may not be a very good dude, just in general, and for a healthy _plethora_ of reasons—but there’s a prickling sense of unease growing in the pit of his stomach, as one minute passes into two, and the sounds of distress go unheeded. 

_What in the fresh_ fuck, he thinks, when another member of the house staff drifts through the room without any sense of urgency. If he knew shit about magic beyond a few travel-handy tricks and the occasional intuitive transmutation, he’d assume this was some sort of elaborate illusion. Maybe a sort of test played on unsuspecting hopefuls who came to answer the help-wanted ad. 

Unfortunately for Taako, he remembers all-too well what it feels like to be an unwanted child, outcast and always alone. As it turns out, he has a very particular Achilles’ heel and he’s not overly thrilled to discover it.

“Well, I didn’t need the job _that_ bad,” he tells himself, as he gets up to single-mindedly fail this stupid test. And nevermind that he kind of really _did_.

‘Confidence is key’ and ‘fake it till you make it’ are two mantras that Taako could live and die by, so it’s with long, unchecked strides that he crosses the grand foyer and chases the miserable cries up some stairs, down a long corridor, and finally into an out-of-the-way bedchamber at what must have been the back of the house. 

The cries stutter when the door clicks open, and Taako gets a glimpse of a tiny round face peering at him through the bars of an ancient-looking crib. The sudden appearance of this strange elf in his nursery seems to have surprised the little human, but not for long. After about two seconds, he screws his face up and screams with renewed vindication.

Taako winces, his sensitive ears twitching back at the onslaught. This is way above his paygrade, but he used to babysit younger kids in the caravans while their parents were busy or drunk, in exchange for a hot meal or a few coins. He’s not totally out of his depth here. 

“Hey, little man,” he says by way of hello. “Trying to bring the roof down, huh? No, I dig that. I wasn’t gonna say anything, but this house of yours is ugly as hell.”

Taako doesn’t raise his voice, because what the hell would be the point? There’s no way he’s winning _that_ contest of wills, and nobody wants some lunatic shouting at them when they’re this fucking distraught, anyway. He just crosses his arms on the side of the crib and leans down to get a good look at the kid.

The baby’s face is tacky and snotty, dusky skin flushed darker with exertion, curly hair a tangled mop. But he’s a cute little guy despite himself, probably a year old or thereabouts, not that Taako is in any way a decent judge of that sort of thing. As Taako talks to him in a conversational tone, his awful, heaving sobs peter out.

The tearful gulps are better. The way he lifts pudgy arms up to be held, not so much.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Taako says, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I’m not even supposed to be in here. You have no _idea_ how culturally insensitive people are when it comes to elves and babies. Your mama walks in and sees me holding you, and then she’s calling the guard, and I’m getting hauled off for attempting to spirit her little heir away, and we both perpetuate an archaic myth that all elves are equally capable of _and_ greedy for voluntary childcare. Let me just say—from personal experience—that is _not_ the fuckin' case.”

But he reaches a hand into the crib and lets the little human clutch at it. Tiny, clumsy fingers wrap around Taako’s much bigger ones and hold tight. The baby’s eyes are wide and curious now, soaking up Taako’s every word without a damn clue what any of them mean. 

Taako almost forgot he knew how to do this. It’s been months since Glamour Springs, since Sazed ditched him on the road. Taako’s been living a half-life, made up of odd jobs and never staying for too long in any one place, and for all that it’s absurdly one-sided, this is the longest conversation he’s had since then, too.

“One of us is pretty fucking pathetic,” he confides. “And it’s not the screamy baby.”

“Ah, this is where you’ve gone,” a voice from the doorway says. 

Taako jumps in alarm, and looks around in time to watch a man step into the nursery. He bears a striking resemblance to the baby in the crib, though he’s graying at the temples and his face is lined with too much age for him to be an immediate parent. Grandparent, probably. Distinguished, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than the entire cumulative worth of everything Taako currently owns, leaning heavily on a walking cane. 

He doesn’t look as though he’s about to ring the alarm, but Taako is still a little keyed up. Given the way he’s been living, the feeling of getting caught, even for a moment, activates his fight or flight response.

“Sorry,” Taako says lamely. “I heard him crying.”

“I don’t doubt it. His parents, my daughter and her husband, died recently. An accident on the road,” the man says. There’s some sorrow there, but it’s pushed back and away. Compartmentalized. “He came to live with me, but the transition hasn’t been an easy one. It seems as though all he’s done is cry.”

Taako doesn’t melt even slightly for the poor kid, because he’s made of sterner stuff than that. But he does let him hold onto his hand for a little while longer. It’s not hurting anything. 

“So, you must be here about the job,” the old man goes on. “To tell you the truth, I’d just about given up on finding a decent nanny. When can you start?”

Taako stares at him. There’s an alarm klaxon blaring in the back of his brain, along with a shrill inner voice advising him to “abort, motherfucker, _abort_!” 

It wasn’t a nanny ad. It was just a ‘general help wanted in exchange for room and board’ type of deal. He wouldn’t have shown up to take the job in the first place if it had specified providing 1) cooking, 2) companionship, or 3) childcare, and that’s for damn sure. He believes in playing to his strengths, and while vapid charm is certainly one of them, being personable and likable for any extended period of time is _not_. 

And Taako absolutely doesn’t know what to think of this old rich guy who seems to be operating under the illusion that thirty seconds is plenty of time to get enough of a read on some rando to then trust your _child_ to them. For real, and from the bottom of Taako's heart, what the fuck?

He’s only been acquainted with this particular child for about five minutes, but his ears go back and his hackles go up at the idea of someone just walking in off the street to take charge of him. 

Maybe there’s some crucial insanity element to parenthood that Taako just isn’t fucking picking up. Maybe total and complete willingness to just ditch your kid at a moment’s notice is part of the package. Sure would explain a few things about Taako’s childhood. 

But… this old manor house is clearly in the middle of nowhere. Two hours from the nearest settlement, where the job posting was hiding beneath other flyers on the board in the square. Taako wandered the woods all afternoon and almost gave up finding the place before the chimney smoke tipped him off. 

It’s remote. Safe. And, at a glance, more comfortable than any of the inns and caravans Taako has lived out of since his auntie died. 

He’s not qualified for this position, but since when has that ever stopped him? It’s not like he went to culinary school, either, and for awhile he was one of the most famous chefs on the continent. A baby can't be _that_ much work.

 _Fake it till you make it,_ he thinks, and then faces the old man with a smile. 

“Hell, I’m already here. Might as well start now.”

* * *

Aside from Taako, there are three other members of staff on the books, and none of them are full-time. The maids come in every other day to do the cleaning and the laundry and bring in groceries, that sort of thing. The groundskeeper only works the weekends. 

They like Mr McDonald well enough, the girls confide in Taako over tea on his first night there, and the pay isn’t bad, but he’s forgetful. Doesn’t think to eat until he feels hunger pains, that sort of thing. Don’t be surprised if you get paid twice some weeks, or not at all others.

“He’s just not interested in running a household, I think,” the older of the two imparts, ancient at seventeen for all the weariness in her eyes. “I’m glad he finally found someone to take care of the baby. I felt bad about him crying all the time.”

Baby Angus had seemed to surprise both teens by being agreeable and downright adorable, perfectly content to be tucked into the crook of Taako’s arm and soothed to sleep by the rumble of his voice. 

Did any of you try, like, holding him? Taako wants to ask acidly. Seems a little fucked up that _Taako_ , of all people, is more on top of this than anyone else. But the maids are little more than kids themselves, and it seems as though grandpa isn’t completely with it. 

About a month after Taako first wandered in, grandpa proves it.

“It was before Angus was born,” Mr McDonald says, digging through the many drawers in his study, looking for some expensive rich person thing he’d acquired at auction four years ago. There’s an empty crystal tumbler sitting on the liquor cabinet, next to a half-empty decanter of whiskey. “We went to Goldcliff for a charity fundraiser. Marquis proposed to my daughter that night. You remember, Taako?”

Taako, halfheartedly poking through stuff on the desk while Angus chews on the end of his braid, replies, “Sure do, homie. Hell of a party.”

He finds a photo in a stack of letters and pauses. Two humans are pictured with their arms around each other, handsome smiles on their faces for the camera, a baby cradled tenderly between them. 

At the bottom, in looping handwriting, someone wrote ‘Marquis, Angela, and Angus.’ There’s a little heart drawn under the names with such care that it, in itself, is something of a revelation. 

Angus’ parents wouldn’t have let him cry himself sick in a faraway room. They wouldn’t have let some stranger be holding him now. They abandoned him, but not on purpose. Not the same way Taako’s family did. 

This kid was _loved_. He’s _due_ love. And all he has is an absent grandpa and a shitty elf looking after him. 

“Check it out, Ango,” Taako says quietly, holding the photo up so the baby can see, carefully out of reach of those sticky fingers. “Your genes are killer. You’re gonna outshine the whole damn world.”

He pockets the photo with a sleight of hand he perfected at ten years old, and then guts some ugly painting in the service hallway in the name of repurposing the frame, and then he and Angus stage a tactical retreat. 

The nursery was too depressing, just in general, so one of Taako’s first acts as nanny was to move all the baby stuff in with his. He had his pick of any of the second floor bedchambers, and he chose one overlooking the overgrown gardens, with a pretty bay window that it only took like two hours and a handful of stubborn Prestidigitations to scrub clean. 

He enlarges the photo, slides it into the frame, transmutes it to look like a more professional job, and then sets it in place of pride on one of the empty shelves.

“Gang’s all here,” he says. He bounces Angus a few times, eliciting a toothy smile from the kid. 

_Lordy_ , Taako thinks, _she’d be laughing her ass off if she could see me right now._

The thought comes out of absolutely nowhere and disappears just as quickly, sliding right out of his mind like water through a sieve. Then Angus makes a sudden dive to grab one of the charms hanging off the brim of Taako’s hat, and he has more immediate things to worry about. 

* * *

Living in a house is weird. Having the run of the place is even weirder.

Taako is certainly not the type to sign up for extra responsibility, and he’d be the first to say as much to literally anyone who asked. Keeping himself alive has always been trouble enough, and now he has a whole ass extra person he’s in charge of, too. 

But as time drags on, he realizes he’s been pretty solidly assimilated. 

When McDonald forgets to give Catherine the grocery allowance before he fucks off on one of his bi-monthly business trips to Neverwinter, Taako forks over his own gold without feeling the sting of it too badly. He practically writes his own checks around here, anyway. He can make up the difference whenever.

When crotchety old Boniface came in from the gardens looking for an answer about the freshly broken fountain, he bypasses McDonald’s closed office door entirely to demand guidance out of Taako instead. Taako is in the library, laying on his stomach to supervise Angus’ painstaking and artistic destruction of a probably priceless but unfortunately racist oral history Taako found on one of the shelves, and gives Boniface the go-ahead to gut the old eyesore. 

“If it dies, it dies,” Taako says plainly, passing Angus a new red crayon. Boniface, pleased that he’s allowed to demolish something, makes it a point to ask Taako about these things first from then on. 

When Ezra shows up in Taako’s suite one morning with tearful eyes and an ugly burn from the temperamental furnace in the basement, neither of them stop to question why she ran all the way up here. They’re both reasonably intelligent people, after all, and Taako is quick to cast a nonverbal Helping Hand. He doesn’t need to overthink it. The burned skin on Ezra’s arm is shiny and red, but repaired. 

The girl surges forward to hug him, visibly rethinks it, and then changes course and scoops Angus up for a hug and a noisy kiss on the cheek instead. Angus shrieks in bald delight, and Taako finds himself smiling.

So, yeah. It’s weird, the whole thing is weird, but he wouldn’t say it’s _bad._

McDonald is a kind but largely absent presence in their lives. When he’s home, he’s shut up in his study. Angus hardly seems to recognize the man anymore, only watching him with solemn brown eyes from the comforting circle of Taako’s arms. It doesn’t really sit well with Taako—he didn’t take this job to upstage any relatives or be a replacement parent—but he’s already nanny to a precocious two-year-old, he can’t also be nanny to a seventy-something-year-old retired scholar. If McDonald wants to be a part of Angus’ life, that’s on him. It can’t _possibly_ fall on Taako’s shoulders. 

“And even if it did, I have a bad back,” Taako informs Angus. “You’ll have to do the heavy-lifting for me, sweetpea. How’s that sound?”

“Okay, Taako,” Angus says gravely. If there’s a tiny part of Taako that’s fucking _delighted_ every time this tiny miracle says his name, he squashes it down good and hard and no one is the wiser. 

It feels a little bit like nothing exists outside this spacious manor house. The extensive grounds might as well be a magic barrier between Taako and the rest of the world. It won’t last—nothing good ever does—but for now he allows himself to pretend that it will. 

* * *

Taako and his little shadow swing into the kitchen around noon one day to find Catherine in tears. 

This is so far from the norm that Taako actually draws up short in the doorway. Angus toddles right into the back of his leg, loses his balance, and plops down hard on his padded bottom.

“What’s this all about, darling?” Taako asks warily. 

Catherine is sharp in all the places Ezra is soft, and while it makes her much easier to understand—a girl after Taako’s own black, shriveled heart—it also makes her approximately one million times more difficult to comfort, as likely to bite at a helping hand as accept one.

At the first sign of her vicious temper, he’s gonna grab his kid and bail. There’s fruit and bread in the larder that’ll see them through to dinner, and if all else fails, he's not above bribing Ezra to run interference.

But Catherine just lifts her head out of her hands and says, “I burnt the stupid soup!”

Taako blinks. He stands still so Angus can use one of his legs as leverage to pull himself back upright, and cups the back of the boy's head in silent praise when he manages it on his own. 

“Okay,” Taako says slowly. He can piece this shit together. “The soup is burnt. And you’re cheesed about it because…you feel really strongly about soup.”

“Don’t be _stupid,_ ” she snaps, but it’s without any real heat. “I just. I can’t get anything _right_ today.” 

_Ah._ Okay. So it’s one of those.

He hesitates for a moment, and then leans down to scoop Angus up and balances him on a hip. Angus knows not to toddle into the kitchen unsupervised, and rarely gets to toddle in at all when there’s cookery going on. 

Taako himself rarely goes in. It feels too much like tempting fate. But his feet carry him forward, and he leans over the pot of thick and creamy chicken and dumplings, and right away he can smell the problem. It caught on the bottom and scorched. 

He’s never worked in this kitchen—and he never will—but he remembers the steps. It’s _mise en place._ He reaches into the spice cabinet and withdraws a small tin shaker.

“Cinnamon,” he says at length, offering the tin to Catherine. 

She stares at him, losing some of her steel for a moment. “Really?”

“Really,” Taako says, and firmly steps back. The six-second exchange has left him feeling tense and sick, his appetite fully and completely fucking out of the picture. 

Angus is a perceptive little monster, and settles more heavily into Taako’s arms. He heaves a very deliberate sigh, something he started doing to communicate that he’s feeling particularly safe and content. It makes Taako’s chest hurt in a much different way than impending panic attacks tend to, and he presses a kiss to the kid’s curly head. 

“Thanks, angel,” he says. 

“You’re welcome.”

“Holy _shit_ , Taako,” Catherine says, looking up from the soup with awe in her eyes. As he watches, she tries another spoonful, and then she actually laughs out loud. “It worked!”

He finds himself searching her face for—sickness. Shortness of breath. _Something._

It’s stupid. The people he killed in Glamour Springs didn’t show signs of death for days. 

“I didn’t know you cooked,” Catherine goes on. “Could you teach me?”

“I don’t,” Taako blurts. It comes out sharper than he meant for it to, sudden and a little bit too loud. Catherine’s smile tapers. Angus lifts his head off Taako’s shoulder. _Breathe, idiot,_ Taako tells himself. _Be a fucking person for two seconds._ “Cook, I mean. I don’t cook. Or, uh, teach. I’m kind of useless. Pretty, though.”

He flips his hair. It makes Angus giggle, but Catherine isn’t an easily-amused toddler, and she’s not buying it. 

Her eyes are sharp, and seem to peel through layers of Taako’s bullshit like a knife. And then she scoffs, and mimics his hair flip with her wrist even though her hair is only about two inches long, and the tension drains out of the room like someone pulled a plug in the floor. 

“You’ve been teaching Mango to read,” she says dryly. “And Elvish. And magic. But okay, Mr I Don’t Teach.”

“He’s my fucking _protege._ That shit’s different!”

“Shit!” Angus agrees cheerfully.

“Whatever. Now that I know you’re secretly a fountain of knowledge, I’m dragging you in here the next time I fuck up a recipe.” She studies him for a moment, and adds, “You don’t have to cook, Teach. If it bothers you. I just…I need help sometimes.

Taako feels himself relenting. This house is turning him into a fucking pushover. 

“I know, Cat,” he sighs. “Try to find one person who doesn’t.”

* * *

“Alright, little man,” Taako says, tugging Angus’ collar straight. “What are the rules?”

“Hold your hand, don’t talk to strangers, aim for the eyes if I can reach them, knees if I can’t,” his boy recites gravely. 

Next to him, Ezra stifles a snort of laughter. Boniface, waiting by the loaded carriage, looks reluctantly amused. Catherine says, “Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to give you a kid?”

“Uh, your boss,” Taako says without looking at her. He stands up from his crouch as the front door closes, and they all turn as McDonald comes down the steps to join them in the crumbly courtyard.

“Are we ready, boys?” he asks with a smile. “Neverwinter is waiting.”

Honestly, Taako has been sick with dread over this trip for the past two weeks, but he wouldn’t know how to go about explaining that. And he sure as _hell_ isn’t sending Angus off alone with his absent-minded grandfather. The kid probably wouldn’t make it home. 

It’s not as though Taako has been _sequestered_ in the manor house for the last five years. He’s ambled into the settlement with the girls now and then, has gone farther up the road to buy from caravans for Candlenights gifts, has let himself be bullied, cajoled, blackmailed and bribed into helping Boniface lug imported plants home from the train station. 

But this is fucking _Neverwinter._ The Jewel of the North. 

“Taako? You okay?” Angus says from somewhere near his elbow. 

“Just dreading three hours on the road playing I, Spy with you, boychik,” he lies smoothly. “Go pet the horses so we can get that out of the way.”

Angus looks mulish for a moment, but he does insist on petting the carthorses before they take the carriage literally anywhere, so he lifts his head and crosses the courtyard with great dignity. Taako watches sharply until Boniface rolls his eyes so hard Taako can practically hear it and hefts Agnus up in one huge arm to better reach the giant creatures without running the risk of getting fucking trampled. 

“I’m making the salmon at home tonight,” Catherine says abruptly, a non-sequitur that takes Taako by surprise. “If I don’t fuck it up, I’m gonna cook it here, too. So don’t be late, Teach.”

“I’ll a hundred percent eat your share if you’re late,” Ezra adds. Her smile looks a little strained. 

Taako has not been subtle. He’s been freaking out right out loud where anybody could see it. _Get it together, asshole,_ he coaches himself helpfully.

“Cat,” he says earnestly, “your salmon is _literally_ the only thing I have to live for.”

She groans and pushes him away from her. Angus has finished with the horses and returns to Taako at a run, even though they’re all going to be walking back across the courtyard to the carriage in like one minute anyway. 

McDonald is handing out a few last minute instructions. They’re mostly things that have already been taken care of, errands that have already been run, the ushe. The girls nod along politely, but there’s a level of uncertainty lingering above them like a cloud. They look as nervous about Taako leaving as Taako feels. 

Now, Taako is many things—an elf, a failed chef, a murderer, a dime-store wizard, and one lucky nanny—but he is not some mercurial fairy tale creature. He’s not going to vanish from their lives the second they lose sight of him. He could if he wanted to, and he will if he has to, but he _doesn’t_ want to. For now, he doesn’t have to. 

So he lifts a hand and says, “Back soon.”

But for some reason, it fucking hurts. 

* * *

The trip is about everything he expected it would be: long and boring. Angus gets tired of I, Spy within about ten minutes, the interior of the carriage is a little too tight to practice his cantrips, and Boniface seems to be aiming for the roughest parts of the road on purpose. Taako tries reading aloud from one of the Caleb Cleveland books, but McDonald keeps interrupting every time they get to the good, mysterious parts, so Angus and Taako trade a loaded glance and wordlessly agree to save it for later. 

Still, it’s not awful. Angus at six years old is bright-eyed and relentlessly clever. He wants to be a detective like Caleb, and has taken to solving little mysteries around the manor house, like who left the jam out on the counter (Taako, and what are you going to do about it, pumpkin?) and who tracked the mud inside the undercroft (Boniface, obviously, that’s where all the booze is, and he literally works in mud all day. You didn’t have to put on your detective cap for that one).

Needless to say, Taako would burn the whole world down for this kid. 

With no choice but to spend time in his grandson’s company, Taako can see Angus’ innate charm going to work on McDonald. There’s something wistful in the old man’s eyes, affectionate and more than a little bittersweet. He stops interrupting as Angus starts to describe his latest case in great detail—the mystery of the missing tarts!

The tarts are wrapped up and waiting in Taako’s bag for when they inevitably get snacky during the trip, but he's not going to tell. He kinda wants to see how far the kid takes this one. 

By the time they board the train, Angus is tuckered out. The excitement of a trip so far from home is wearing off after hours in a carriage, and Taako ends up carrying him into their sleeper car and putting him to bed in one of the bunks. 

McDonald takes a seat at the small table and watches without commentary as Taako extracts the boy’s hat and glasses and wand without waking him, pulling the blanket up to his shoulders. And then, out of habit more than anything else, he murmurs the only Elven blessing he remembers, quite literally ‘ _sweet dreams.’_ He remembers Auntie saying it to him, and…someone else, maybe? He remembers that it always made him feel loved to hear it. 

“Hiring you was the best thing I could have done for him,” McDonald says suddenly. 

Taako turns with a trademark smile on his face, only as charming as it needs to be. “Hiring me was the best thing you ever did, period.”

His boss smiles back, but there’s an edge to it that Taako can’t translate. This is the most present and aware he’s looked in the last five years. Taako isn’t sure he’s ever had this much of McDonald’s attention.

“There’s another reason I wanted to take the two of you with me this week,” he says.

It’s ominous as fuck, and as the train lurches into motion, pulling away from the station, Taako realizes that he’s effectively trapped here, in a way he never was at the manor house. Some of his thoughts must show on his face, because McDonald’s smile warms a bit, and he gestures at the other chair.

“It’s a good thing, son. No need to be nervous.”

Taako sits in an irreverent collapsing of limbs to prove that he _isn’t_ nervous, actually. McDonald pulls a bunch of papers out of his briefcase and sets them on the table. They look official as _fuck._ McDonald’s signature at the bottom draws Taako’s eye—huh, so _that’s_ his first name. After this long, it would have felt a little awkward to ask. Beneath that is the signature and seal of a notary. 

“What am I looking at here, Charlie?”

McDonald’s lips twitch. He probably cottoned onto the name thing.

“Well, this isn’t an easy conversation to have, and I probably could have picked a better time for it, but.” He glances over Taako’s shoulder at where Angus is sleeping. “It’s probably better if the boy doesn’t overhear until it’s sorted.”

“I hear ya. That little bugbear is all up in everyone’s business all the time,” Taako says proudly. “Just the worst.”

“He’s amazing,” McDonald says. That sorrow swims into his eyes now, an ancient, ruinous thing. “He reminds me of my daughter every time I look at him.” Oh. “It’s been…hard to look at him sometimes.” _Oh._

Taako carefully reevaluates his opinion of Angus’ absent grandfather. Not too much, because the dude still should have been around, but, you know. Some.

Taako tries to imagine losing somebody, how much it must hurt. He tries to imagine _looking_ _like_ somebody, a family resemblance, a belonging at face-value. He’s never experienced either, but there’s still a bitter pit in his throat, a feeling like if he swallows too hard he’ll start to cry. So he sits very still instead.

“But still, he’s my only grandson, and I want him to be taken care of when I’m gone,” the man goes on. “I’m getting on in years, and I probably don’t have much longer left—oh, Taako. It’s alright.”

Taako is _certain_ he didn’t move. He’s still doing the sitting-very-still thing. Then he realizes his ears betrayed him, pressed back flat against his head. Goddamn things. 

“No, it’s uh. Taako’s good, don’t. Just.”

It’s the human age thing. He doesn’t want to think about it. He waves McDonald on, a tight rolling gesture. They really need to power through the rest of this conversation while Taako still has enough self-control left to not do something really embarrassing in front of his boss, like have a whole _emotion_ _._

McDonald takes pity. Thank fuck.

“It’s normal to want to get your ducks in a row,” he says. “I’m not planning on kicking the bucket any time soon.”

“Alright, let’s organize these ducks,” Taako says with unwarranted enthusiasm. He’s trying to trick himself into it. “Fucking ducks, am I right?”

“Angus is my heir. When he’s of age, he’ll get the estate and everything that goes with it, as well as his parents’ properties,” McDonald says, once again reminding Taako that he’s a rich old fuck. _Istus._ “But that’s still more than a decade away. If something should happen to me in the meantime, I don’t want him to end up a ward of the state.”

Taako blinks. In the back of his mind, he realizes that he has become one of those elves that would one-thousand-percent kidnap a human baby if it came down to it. Leave Agnes in an orphanage? _His_ Agnes? It would literally have never occurred to him. 

“Custody cases can be so long-winded. The easiest way to circumvent the whole mess would be to adopt you into the family,” McDonald says, super nonchalant about flipping the world upside down. “That way Angus has an immediate next of kin that no one would question.”

He looks up when Taako doesn’t say anything and frowns at whatever Taako’s face must look like. 

“You don’t have to use the surname if you don’t want to. It’s mostly just for the sake of paperwork.”

“I can’t,” Taako blurts. 

“Of course. I wouldn’t insist that you change your family name if it’s important to you—”

“Not—not _that,_ who gives a _fuck_ about my family name,” Taako says too loudly. Angus shifts around for a second, like he might wake up, and Taako snaps his mouth closed so hard it hurts his teeth. In a whisper, because it’s all he can manage without giving into the urge to scream, Taako forces out, “I—I’m—I can’t.”

In the nightmare scenarios that still sometimes plague him in the middle of the night, when everyone else is asleep and he’s alone with the voice in his brain that fucking _hates_ him, the choices always boiled down to either leaving Angus behind or taking him on the run. Both choices were fucking awful for a myriad of different reasons, and left Taako pacing his room tirelessly trying to think his way out of an unsolvable problem. 

The idea that he could become a legal part of Angus’ family as simply as signing a piece of paper is so far-fetched and ridiculous that he can’t wrap his mind around it. He _wants_ it.

But bringing all his shit into Angus’ life? Signing up for this only to get snatched away the second the paperwork goes through and the militia finally finds him? Leaving his dirty laundry all over the front yard like the worst fucking house guest _imaginable,_ and then peacing out to spend the rest of his long-ass fucking elf life in jail, while Angus was left to just…deal with that? 

He couldn’t. He can’t. Every single option is bad. He shouldn’t have stayed. He should have known he would fall in love with that baby on day one. It’s really fucking _stupid_ that he stayed. 

“—aako. _Taako.”_

Taako jerks his head up. His ears are twitching and his hands are shaking and McDonald has probably been saying his name for awhile. 

The man’s eyes are bright and steely. They look exactly like Angus’ do sometimes, when he wakes Taako up from a miserable meditation, when it’s just the two of them in a huge house surrounded by a crumbling garden. 

“Tell me,” the man says sternly. 

At a fucking complete _loss,_ Taako just…does. 

When he’s finished, McDonald looks at him really hard for what feels like a long time. Then he pulls a pair of reading glasses out of an inner pocket of his coat, poises the business end of a fountain pen against a fresh sheet of paper, and starts asking questions. 

It’s a business-like, no-nonsense exchange. Taako is wiped out, emotionally he is the equivalent of a damp rag wrung out to dry, and he has no wherewithal left to lie or deny or deflect. 

When they’re done, McDonald has filled three notebook pages of blocky handwriting, and Taako is swaying in his seat. He watches somewhat vacantly as McDonald nods to himself and rummages in his briefcase for a stone of farspeech. 

“We won’t reach Neverwinter until morning. Get some sleep,” he says, and his voice is kindly again, the way it was before. Taako stares at him. “And don’t tell me elves don’t need it, please. I wasn’t born yesterday, and you nap twice as much as my grandson ever did.”

Well, it would be nice to get one last unnecessary snooze in as a free man, Taako supposes, and he doesn’t hesitate to climb into Angus’ bunk. It’s a familiar ritual. The kid squirms to accommodate him without fully waking. Taako tucks an arm around him and buries his nose in that riot of curly hair. 

He hears McDonald say, “You’re not much more than a kid yourself, are you?” but that might have just been part of a dream. 

He hears someone else say, “That can’t be broken or lost or taken away, it’s always going to be so important,” but Taako thinks that, whoever that was, they were very clearly wrong.

* * *

Taako wakes up to a six-year-old’s warm brown eyes. They’re crinkled at the corners in an urchin sort of way, and it’s the only tell Taako needs. His kid has been up to some _mischief_. 

“Grandpa said you were tired and I should let you sleep,” Angus reports cheerfully. “He also said that there was a nice lady selling flowers a few cars down, and I ought to go buy a few!”

Ah. Taako glances down at the ruin of his hair. It looks like about a hundred snowberry blossoms were worked into the thick flaxen braid. It’s going to be an absolute pain to brush out later. He’ll probably find bits of plant in his hair for days. He loves it. 

He risks a glance in McDonald’s direction. 

The man looks amused by their whole general existence, which is fair. He also doesn't look like he's about to summon the guard to have Taako hauled into the brig, which is a fucking relief and a half. 

“The world changed while you were asleep,” he says significantly. “Would you like to sign the papers now or with your pardon?”

Angus says, all in one breath, “You should sign the papers first! Grandpa says then you’ll be my family! I mean, you already are, so I’m not sure what the point is, but it _must_ be important. Look at how _official_ they are!”

Taako feels about four cups of coffee behind this conversation. He scoots off the bed, spilling into one of the chairs at the table, and folds his hands. 

“Charlie. Buddy.”

“I stepped out for _two_ minutes,” McDonald says defensively, “and I thought he was asleep!”

“That’s the oldest trick in the book,” Taako mutters. His heart is doing something really complicated and largely unnecessary, fucking backflipping in his chest, at Angus’ thoughtless ‘you already are.’ Like it was a given. What the fuck. “Can you go back to, uh—the world changing? A pardon? What’s up with that?”

“An old friend of mine is a cleric,” he says pushing a steaming cup in Taako’s direction. “Level nine, or thereabouts. She owed me a favor from when we were in school together, when I—well, that’s not important. What _is_ important is that she was happy to cast Discern Location to find your old stage manager.”

Taako fumbles the cup, almost drops it. He sets it down hard. 

“What the fuck? No, hold that thought. Angus, I love you. Get lost.”

He’s really banking on the kid being more stir-crazy than curious, and sure enough, Angus hops right off the bunk and sprints for the door. 

“Okay, I’ll be in the dining car! You’re not s’posed to take food back with you, but I’m gonna see how many pastries I can fit in my pockets so you won’t be hungry when you sign the papers that make you my family! Love you, bye!”

“A three-hour carriage ride followed by six hours on a train was the _worst_ fucking idea,” Taako says severely. “He’s gonna be on _eleven_ when we roll up to Neverwinter. They might not let us in.”

“He’s just excited,” the old man says, with the tranquility of someone who isn’t going to have to child-wrangle all day long. “I told him I had good news for you.”

Taako is fidgeting, turning the cup of coffee around and around in his hands. It’s leaving a ring of condensation on the table. 

“You found Sazed?” he asks, and hates how small his voice sounds. 

“We did.”

“He probably hates me,” Taako mutters. “I ruined his life.”

McDonald takes the cup from him and sets it down on the other side of the table with a firm _clunk_.

“Pardon my language, but you didn’t ruin _crud,_ ” he says severely. Taako mouths ‘crud’ in bewilderment, but McDonald isn’t finished. “I was suspicious of your story when you described the way those people died. Those aren’t the typical symptoms of deadly nightshade, and I’d never heard of a transmutation spell failing in that way before. So I looked into it. Or, I should say, I had a few friends look into it.” 

“Are you in a cult?” Taako asks. He can’t help it. He’s one part genuinely curious and two parts hardwired to deflect any time someone tricks him into having a serious conversation. “We frown on cults in this family. Mysterious shadow organizations are never a good thing, no matter what greater-good shit they’re peddling.”

“I’m very rich and belong to very elite social circles,” McDonald says dryly. He’s unmoved by Taako’s general everything. “This whole thing took about three calls. I wish you would have told me about this five years ago, but I do understand why you didn’t.”

Taako doesn’t have a cup to fuck around with anymore. He stopped wearing jewelry when Angus was a baby and literally everything smaller than an apple was a choking hazard, and he never really got into the habit of it again, so he doesn’t have rings to twist around his fingers, either. He wrings his hands instead.

“If it wasn’t the elderberries,” he chokes out, and doesn’t make it any farther. 

“It was arsenic,” McDonald says. His voice is kind again, but not so much so that it’s painful to hear. “Sazed was questioned within a Zone of Truth. He admitted to—okay,” he cuts himself off, putting a hand on Taako’s shoulder. “We’re done talking about it for now. Just take it easy.”

Taako doesn’t uncurl from his chair until the door rattles open and Angus’ voice fills the room. He’s found a dozen things to talk about in the ten minutes he’s been gone, and is very proud of himself for all the contraband pastries he managed to make off with. There’s a cheese danish wrapped very carefully in a napkin, only slightly squished, that he presents to Taako with a showy flourish that he really only could have picked up from too much time around one particular idiot. 

Taako accepts the danish, and then hauls Angus up onto his lap, and then says, “Charlie, baby. Pass me that fancy pen.”

* * *

For the first time in eight years, Taako is cooking for an audience again. His hands are shaking, but as long as everyone else is politely pretending like they don’t notice, he can do himself the same favor. 

_I fed those people their death, but it wasn’t on me,_ he recites inwardly for the seven millionth time, a nervous mantra. _My magic was good. My cooking was good. I was good. It wasn’t on me._

He looks up from the counter where all his tools are laid out and his ingredients are arranged. Ezra is bouncing eagerly in her seat, Boniface is lounging in the doorway like he doesn’t care but he also isn’t leaving, and Catherine’s eyes are wide and moonlike and younger than Taako has ever seen them. Angus has place of pride, a seat on the counter by the sink with the best view in the house. 

“Okay,” he says. “What are the rules, pumpkin?”

“No swiping ingredients, no magic in the kitchen, and no taste-testing until you say it’s okay,” Angus rattles off promptly. “Autographs at the end of the show are three gold apiece, photos are ten, and the overall experience is absolutely priceless.”

Over the sweet sound of the rest of his audience groaning at him, Taako goes on blithely, “And what are we cooking today?”

“Macarons!” 

“And who’s your dude?” Taako asks, pointing a whisk at him. Angus giggles, and Taako’s hands aren’t shaking anymore.

In a month, Angus is going off to a summer camp out past Rockport. It’s Caleb Cleveland-themed, and the whole thing sounds extremely nerdy and book-cluby, and Angus is desperately excited. He’s also desperately nervous about being away from his family for three whole weeks but he’s trying to keep that on the down-low. He’s very grown up at nearly ten years old. 

Taako can respect that. He also bought the kid a stone of farspeech, because actually fuck that. 

And while Angus is off having his first away-from-home adventure—since the girls think that Taako’s just going to be useless and mopey the whole time, and Boniface already threatened to bury him in a flowerbed the first time he whines about literally anything—Taako is going to go do something cool, too. There’s always some interesting jobs posted on Craig's List up in Neverwinter. He’ll be able to find _something_ to occupy his time. 

But for now, he’s gonna make some goddamn desserts. 

“Come on, Ango,” Taako wheedles, “who’s your dude?”

“ _You_ , papa.”

 _I’m good,_ Taako reminds himself. He looks at his kid, who only deserves the best this piece of shit world has to offer, and thinks, _I can be good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it might be neat to write more of this au sometime, who knows !! 
> 
> thank you for reading :)
> 
> [UPDATE please look at the GORGEOUS art my friend drew for this story !!!!](https://taizi.tumblr.com/post/631236472959270912/soldrawss-taizi-you-have-absolutely-no)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the response to this story was OVERWHELMING, thank you all so much for your comments, i adore every single one of them 
> 
> i'll admit i'm somewhat leaning towards the graphic novel characterizations in this au !! they're a bit kinder to each other there and kindness is FULLY my brand :')

The mattress gives slightly near the foot of the bed. Taako, feigning sleep, tucks a smile against his pillow. 

It’s an easy thing to trace the progress of a little human as they pick their way up to him and settle near his shoulder. Small hands pluck and tug at his heavy blankets.

“It’s morning, papa,” Angus whispers. He was four when he learned not to startle Taako awake—it ended in guilt and tears for both of them. “Catherine said she’ll make breakfast.”

Taako makes a humming sound, doesn’t move except to burrow a little deeper.

Angus’ voice wavers when he adds,“You promised you’d take me to the train station.”

Right. _That’s_ why Taako woke up with dread pooled in his stomach. In the warm, softly lit liminal space between sleep and wake, he somehow managed to misplace the fact that today is the day his beautiful magic boy leaves for summer camp. 

Taako lifts his blanket, and Angus dives in a smidge too fast, a child-sized catapult that drives the breath out of Taako’s lungs. He’s getting too big for cuddles, even on the runty side of ten years old. 

Now there’s a thought that hurts! Taako promptly buries it, and wraps his kid up close and snug. There’s still plenty of room for him. There will be no matter how big he gets. Taako would sooner transmute his own arms than he would turn Angus away.

“I’ll take you all the way to Rockport myself if you want,” he says, in the dim cavern they’ve made of the blankets. They’re nose-to-nose, and Angus’ round glasses have gone lopsided with his cheek pressed to the pillow. “I could even stay nearby. There’s got to be at least _one_ inn that’s up to my standards.”

Angus smiles, and it’s only a little tearful. “No inn is up to your standards.”

He’s an independent little thing, and he wants to prove that he can do this on his own—Taako has no clue where he gets _that_ from, but he can respect it. He would support literally any idea that came into that cute curly head of his. So he’ll only cling a little bit when it’s time to say goodbye, and otherwise he’ll hype this whole adventure up until Angus is climbing the walls with excitement. 

“That’s a them problem, not a Taako problem,” Taako says haughtily. “If anything I’m encouraging improvement. Now, go chase Cat out of my kitchen. I have to make my baby his favorite breakfast before his big trip.”

Angus’ face lights up, and he scrambles free of the blankets with a glad shout of, “Stuffed French toast!” 

Taako sits up more slowly. The little magic lights in his room are twinkling overhead, and the irrepressible morning sun is working stubborn fingers through the curtains at the bay window. The old bones of this ancient mansion creak and complain as Angus goes tearing down the hall, but it still holds them. 

It’s a morning like any other, but Taako can’t shake the feeling that nothing will be the same after today. 

* * *

When Angus was three, Taako took him to town for the first time. 

Over the years, the local settlement nearby had evolved into a proper village. Every so often a passing caravan would find themselves charmed by the area and decide to settle in permanently. Buildings started to spring up, roads were paved, a schoolhouse was built, the decrepit old temple was turned into a town hall, the community-appointed headsman was officially voted in as mayor, and the morning markets were busier than ever. 

The cowardly, self-serving part of Taako, the part that had kept him alive for those hard months on the road, wanted to run. All it would take was one fresh face bringing the story of the murdering chef from Glamour Springs into the neighborly little town of Beawich, and Taako would lose everything all over again.

He didn’t run. It was Candlenights, and the tiny human he shaped all his days and nights around wanted to see the lights and eat the sweets and pick out presents for the household staff who made up his family, so that’s exactly what they did. 

They did get looks, right at first. Lingering stares from people who had only glimpsed Taako a few times over the two years he’d been in the area. Ezra and Catherine flanked him on either side, Boniface lumbering along behind, Angus a warm, heavy weight in his arms, and the four of them together were the _only_ reason Taako was able to make that terrifying walk into the town square at all. 

One human woman stopped them in the market, smiling at the sight little Angus made in his scarf and cloak and bobbled hat. 

“Isn’t he just a darling,” she cooed. “What’s his name?”

“Wanna tell her your name, pumpkin?” Taako asked, giving Angus a little bounce. 

Angus studied the stranger for a moment, brown eyes deep and bright, and then hid his face in Taako’s shoulder with a succinct, “No.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry, guess you haven’t unlocked that yet.”

The woman seemed more put-out that Taako wasn’t wheedling Angus into interacting with her than she was put-out that Angus didn’t want anything to do with her in the first place. Hell, Taako didn’t even make Angus interact with his _grandpa_ when he didn’t want to, and his grandpa signed Taako’s paychecks. 

Once they were out of earshot, Ezra said, “Wasn’t that kind of rude?”

Taako shrugged, unbothered. “He’s not a commodity, he’s a whole-ass little person. If he doesn’t wanna chat, I’m not gonna make him.”

It happened a few more times, people stopping to baby-talk at Taako’s baby, but if Angus didn’t want to greet them, it just plain didn’t happen. 

And maybe, a little bit, Taako didn’t want to share him with a bunch of strangers.

So it makes absolutely no sense that he’s digging into his bag for pictures now, wholly unprompted. 

“He’s the _cutest_ kid, you literally won’t fucking believe it,” Taako says, finally coming up with the woven clutch that Ezra gifted him, that he promptly filled with everything but the gold it was meant to transport. Now it’s a vehicle for makeup and sweets and—bingo. He withdraws a weathered photo with a flourish. “We took this one right after he got his first pair of glasses. Isn’t he a nerd?”

Merle takes it, looking amused by Taako’s whole general existence. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the parental type, but I can kind of see it now. Any kid of yours is probably a menace.”

“You know it, thug. Uh, Mags, you’re not even looking.”

“Taako, I’m literally driving the cart,” the human calls back with a laugh. 

Merle clambers up front with the photo, and Magnus good-naturedly agrees with the former assessments of both cute and nerd. Taako feels like someone packed his chest full of helium. 

Valiantly, he curbs any further discussion of Angus, and only in part because of the dead horses they come across on the road.

 _Professionalism_ , Taako. There will be plenty of time to regale his party with stories over a few drinks in Phandalin, toasting a job well done.

* * *

The world is on fire _everywhere._

Taako’s heart is racing, and his lungs burn with every breath he takes of superheated air, but for some _fucking_ reason he doesn’t follow Killian down the well. He spins back around instead, staring white-hot, imminent death right in the face, and searches for any sign of the two chucklefucks he came here with. 

The very thought of leaving this place without them carves a brand new hole into his heart. He really doesn’t get it. Something primeval and powerful overwhelms the raw animal-instinct to save his own life, for probably the first time in working memory, and all for the sake of people he’s known for less than a week.

A second later, Taako sees them—two familiar silhouettes, stumbling in his direction. 

“You’re both idiots!” he shouts, and it doesn’t matter that his voice doesn’t carry over the inferno. 

Taako leans towards them, arms outstretched—and then he’s clasping their forearms, their broad hands curled tight around his own thin wrists in turn—and Taako pulls with all his might to send all three of them careening over the stone lip of the well, tumbling down into what he hopes is safety—and everything that happens after that is bright, and loud, and violent. 

And then it’s very, very quiet. 

_I should have just stayed home,_ Taako thinks grimly, staring overhead at the dusky red sky. 

Magnus bites the inside of his cheek, seems to wrestle with himself for a moment, then blurts, “Lotta woulda-coulda-shouldas, you know what I mean?”

It surprises Taako into a snort of laughter. Merle outright guffaws. Abruptly, absurdly, the bottom of the well is a lot less dark. 

* * *

Taako thought he’d be speeding things up by plucking the apocalypse glove off the ground and shoving it into his bag. Get the ball rolling, get this show on the road, so he can go the fuck _home._

Instead, he ended up transporting the thing to the fucking _moon._ And since then, he's learned a lot. 

Apparently, the fact that he resisted the gauntlet’s _thrall_ makes Taako something of an asset to this whole world-saving operation he’s stumbled upon. He’s content to chalk it up to pure dumb luck, given that he _is_ just a simple, self-taught idiot wizard, but the director doesn’t seem convinced. 

The pay’s nice, Taako can’t deny that. The digs are impressive. But when the director starts talking about _hiring_ them, he’s quick to shut that down, and for what he would assume is the obvious reason:

“I can’t just _live on the moon_ ,” Taako says frankly. “That’s so absurd. I have responsibilities and shit.”

His lizard brain is itchy and disquieted. He is so far from home and so far from the _earth,_ floating in the sky with a bunch of strangers who are discussing, academically, the end of the world _._ The only thing keeping him from outright climbing the walls at this point is the steady presence of Magnus and Merle on either side of him. 

There’s a small part of Taako that wants to take this job just to stay with them, wars and relics and greater goods aside. If he was still the Taako of eight years ago, he would probably consider free room and board at a fortified base on the moon a sweet fucking deal. The coin purse full of gold would have made the decision for him.

But all he has to do is think of his kid, puttering around an empty house with no one to look after him and no one to come home to, and there isn’t really any choice at all. 

Inexplicably, Magnus crosses his arms and says, “I’m with him. I can’t even have a _dog_ here.”

Taako’s heart soars. He presses a hand to his chest, encouraging it to calm the fuck down.

“Is anyone else even a little bit worried about this thing falling out of the sky?” Merle interjects, helpful as _fucking_ always. Almost as one, everyone’s eyes drop to the floor beneath their feet.

“Well, now that you mention,” Magnus says with slow-dawning horror.

Taako darts a quick look at the director. She seems—flabbergasted is a good word, but also oddly tolerant. As if she’s already resigned to their noisy, obtrusive presence in her office, for all that she’s only known them for like ten minutes. 

She looks at them as if she’s looking at something she’s seen before a hundred times, the way Angus rereads his favorite book over and over. Knowing how it will end never seems to bother him. There’s so much comfort in the familiarity of those unchanging pages.

“We certainly have other operatives stationed off-base, you wouldn’t be the only ones,” the director tells them. “But I can’t offer you room and board elsewhere—our resources are pretty well tied up here. Am I correct in assuming the three of you would be able to come up with an alternate arrangement?”

Magnus hesitates, giving himself away with an “uhhh” and a sidelong glance at Merle and Taako. Merle rubs the back of his head and mutters something about an annulment and dividing equity and _hoo boy,_ that’s a whole lot of something Taako doesn’t want to unpack right at this moment. 

So he says, “Don’t worry, fellas. I know a place.”

* * *

Avi offered to shoot them down right next to the house. Taako had about three and a half panic attacks rolled into one at the idea of the giant cannonball going stray, and suggested Avi drop them near the train station instead. 

He called Boniface to secure them a ride home, and now he’s stretched out along the only bench, bare feet propped up on the armrest, finger-combing the snarls out of his hair. 

Magnus and Merle have already seen him in a few compromising situations—Merle practically peeled Taako’s sorry ass off the ground during the fight with Magic Brian, and the three of them were little more than an undignified tangle of limbs in the bottom of that well in Phandalin, and Magnus held Taako’s hand the entire flight up to the moon base to give him something to focus on besides the choking claustrophobia—so that ship has sailed. 

But they’re good people. They chose _Taako_ over that ridiculous moon base and all the perks that came with it. It doesn’t make sense to pile his armor back on, at least not around these two. 

“Could you fucking imagine traveling that way regularly?” Magnus says. He’s sitting on the edge of the empty platform, kicking his feet. He’s weirdly adorable for a guy who can bodily lift and throw an entire wolf into a fire pit. “I mean it’s kind of fun, but in an imminent-death sort of way. Like I was pretty sure we were actually going to die for a second there, I just didn’t want to say anything.”

“Makes more sense to stay down here, anyway, if this is where all the relics are,” Merle adds. “Might take us longer to get to ‘em, but the world hasn’t ended yet, has it?”

“No, that’s true. Hey, do you think everybody in the Bureau works in groups of three? Is that just a thing they do up there? ‘Cause Killian said she’s on a team with her girlfriend and some fool named Boyland…”

Taako tunes them out when he hears the sounds of wagon wheels. He sits upright, shading his eyes to peer down the road. And then he springs to his feet, because he’d know that driver’s grumpy face _anywhere._

“Hey!” Taako calls, his voice echoing around the empty platform and the empty grove. “Hail and well met, babe!”

Boniface lifts his hand up high so Taako can clearly see it when he flips him off. 

“I take it that’s our ride,” Merle says dryly. 

“Hell yes it is. About damn time.” 

Taako pulls his boots back on, shoulders his bag, grabs his umbrella, and takes the station steps three at a time. Magnus is laughing at him, but it’s a sound so without cruelty that it’s impossible to take any kind of offense. Well, okay, not _impossible_ , but Taako is riding the high of finally going the _fuck_ home, so he would probably let most anything slide right now. 

Belatedly, he remembers that Angus is still away at camp, and most of his enthusiasm gives up the ghost right then and there. He clings to the rest with grim determination. Even if Ango is still gone, there’s a comfy bed and a long bath and a decadent, home-cooked meal waiting at the end of this road. 

He aims his most charming smile up at Boniface when the carriage pulls to a reluctant stop.

“You going my way, handsome?” 

“Unfortunately,” the groundskeeper mutters. “Get in before I change my mind and make you walk back.”

“I sign the paychecks!” Taako reminds Boniface sweetly, and then tugs the door open and waves his friends inside. 

Magnus is a big guy, so Taako and Merle are crowded onto one of the bench seats to give Magnus as much shoulder room as they can. He’s agreeable about the whole thing, resting his arms on his knees like a little kid. 

“Taako, are you, like…rich?” he asks in a conspiratorial tone as the carriage starts moving. “Is that what’s happening right now? Is this guy, like, your valet?”

“God, no,” Taako says, gathering his hair together so he’s not sitting on it. “We both work at the same estate, and our boss can’t remember shit, so I take our pay out of his coffers, that’s all.”

“And he’s not gonna mind us staying there?” Merle asks. “Hm. I guess it’s a bit late to poke holes in the plan now, huh?”

“For sure, my dude,” Taako agrees, “since we’re literally _en route_ as we speak. But nah, the guy’s never around.” 

And even when he is around, Charlie tends to defer to Taako on household matters. If he even _notices_ two whole extra people living at the house, he won’t think anything of it. 

Conversation has come easily since the moment they met in that shitty bar in Neverwinter, but it’s tapering now. The three of them are bone-tired. The silence that lulls into place instead is heavy, but not uncomfortable. It’s _companionable_ , not that Taako has cause to use that word often.

In fact, when the carriage finally lurches to a stop three hours later, Taako is jerked out of a doze. Merle is still snoring, face pressed up against the window. Magnus tries to un-pretzel himself, but Taako can’t wait a second longer, and climbs over his knees to get out the door. 

_Gods_ , it feels like it’s been a hundred years since he left home. The greenery is as lush and all-consuming as ever, eating up the faded flagstone of the courtyard, trying its best to swallow the hanging stone fountain, framing the facade of the house on all sides like a guardian beast sent straight from Pan. 

_I love this ugly house,_ Taako thinks fervently.

“Get a move on, darlings,” he says, reaching back into the carriage for his things. “There’s plenty of rooms for you to pick from, and then we can crash.”

A work-hardened hand suddenly crosses his field of vision, lifting Taako’s bag and umbrella away from him. Boniface is there, giving him an imperceptible look, and Taako stares right back.

“You never do nice things,” he says slowly, fully suspicious. “Is this a mugging? Look, I _did_ make some money, but you said yourself we need to replace the pergola in the back before it takes out the conservatory, so stealing from me would just be hurting the whole family.”

Boniface is—maybe smiling at him? It’s impossible to tell. His expression is slightly less dour than Taako is used to. Holy shit, what is happening. 

“Did someone die?” Taako asks shrilly. “Did _I_ die?” He just dreamed the whole moon thing. That makes so much _sense_. 

The front door opens behind them, a familiar groan of exhausted hinges and ancient wood. One of the girls coming to see what the hold-up is, presumably. Taako turns around to ask for an assist, and possibly an exorcism.

He freezes.

Angus is on the porch, beaming at him. In the doorway behind him, the girls are stifling laughter.

“Hi, Taako!” Ezra greets him cheerfully. “We lied about how long Ango’s camp was so he could surprise you when you got home!”

Catherine is talking then, saying something about how shitty Taako looks, as if he doesn’t _know—you_ try making it through Wave Echo Cave and all the subsequent battles therein without fucking your ‘do up, _Cat._

Anyway, he’s not even listening anymore. He’s crossing the courtyard at a run to meet his kid halfway, scooping Angus all the way up off the ground to hold him against his chest. Angus buries his face in Taako’s hair the way he’s done ever since he was a baby, clutching at Taako’s dirtied robes with all his might.

The immediate options are to either laugh or cry, and Taako can already feel his traitor eyes burning, but he’s not going down without a fight. He spins around a few dizzying times, until Angus’ laughter fills the courtyard in rich, ringing peals. 

_Now_ he’s home.

“Don’t cry, papa,” Angus says. 

“Guess it’s time to take you back to that hack of an eye doctor and get your peepers checked,” Taako chokes out. “You can’t see for shit if you think I’m _crying._ ”

* * *

Magnus and Merle are set up with bedrooms on the second floor, given a distracted, halfhearted tour, and left to their own devices until dinner. The hot water heater is getting a decent workout, so they’ve probably decided to capitalize on the en suite showers. 

Taako bathed quickly, scouring the dirt and dungeon grime off himself and piling his hair up into a bun on the top of his head to be dealt with later, and now he’s in the kitchen with Angus, throwing something together for supper. 

So much for that well-deserved nap. 

“It’s good that you made friends,” Angus says, sounding thrilled by the prospect. “Normally you don’t like anybody. Did you have a really neat adventure?”

 _This is my kid,_ Taako thinks fondly, _who says things like ‘neat’._

“My adventure probably wasn’t _half_ as neat as yours,” he says, reaching over to mess up Angus’ curls. “I wanna hear all about it, pumpkin.”

Eyes bright, Angus hops up onto the counter _—_ the _only_ one allowed to sit on the counter _—_ and immediately settles into a very detailed and long-winded story about all fifteen days spent at a summer camp that sounds more like an extended mystery dinner theater than it does any boring outdoorsy snoozefest. 

Angus is flushed with remembered excitement and talking so fast his words run together and waving and flapping his hands. He’s the most precious thing in one elf’s whole life. And as Taako listens, mincing garlic and chopping basil and measuring the ricotta by eye, he thinks about Phandalin. 

He thinks about a whole town going up in flames, fire so hot it just straight up _disappeared everything_. 

He thinks about the other relics, every bit as destructive as the gauntlet, laying in wait out in the world somewhere. 

Taako doesn’t really give a shit about the greater good. That spiel definitely swayed Magnus, and it gave Merle some food for thought, but it rolled right over Taako without sticking. It’s so abstract _—_ just a vague, shapeless idea that refuses to cement into anything attainable, like little kids playing rangers and paladins with no real understanding of the concept. 

Saving the world doesn’t mean to Taako what it means to the others, because his whole world could fit, with a bit of a squeeze and a lot of bitching and moaning, into this small kitchen. He doesn’t have enough room in his misshapen heart for _everyone else._ He just plain doesn’t _care._

But Angus is only ten years old. He’s got so much life left to live. The world can’t be allowed to end until Taako’s kid has had his fill of the thing. Until he’s done and seen and felt everything he wants, and he’s satisfied. 

So to _that_ end, yeah. Taako’s on board with the greater good. He’ll save this planet and all the godforsaken people in it by _himself_ if he has to. 

Lumbering footsteps down the stairs, and two newly familiar voices pitched loud in the middle of a heated argument, make him smile down at the pasta sheets he’s folding into place. 

He probably _won’t_ have to, actually. 

“Holy hell, Taako, I didn’t know you could cook,” Magnus says, cutting himself off as he wanders into the kitchen. “What are you making? It looks amazing.”

“Lasagna, bubala. A Taako original spin on an old classic. Ango, give these hooligans the rules, please.”

“No swiping ingredients, no magic in the kitchen, and no taste-testing unless Taako says it’s okay,” Angus pipes up right on cue. 

“Never argue with the elf that’s doing the cooking,” Merle says wisely, levering himself into a chair. 

Angus has a hundred questions for their guests: where did they grow up, and what are their favorite things, and do they read the Caleb Cleveland novels, and do they want to hear about his summer camp?

For the first couple of minutes, Taako watches the interactions with a sharp eye. He’ll shut this shit down if Magnus or Merle give Angus even the _tiniest hint_ of an attitude. But Magnus is boyish and charming even at his absolute worst, and Merle weathers the barrage of questions with the fortitude of someone accustomed to excitable children, and neither of them do anything that would give Taako a reason to Magic Missile them through a wall. 

Both the human and dwarf look ready to fucking crash at any moment, but stubbornly, they’re hanging in there. And Taako gets it. There aren’t many things that trump a long, restful snooze at the end of an exhausting day (or series of days), but there are some things that almost always do _,_ and a comfortable evening like this is certainly one of them. 

The kitchen is warm and busy, and smells like dinner, and it’s enough to draw even Boniface in eventually. The girls are happy to sit down for a late meal, and find themselves won over by Magnus pretty much right out of the gate. Merle antagonizes Boniface about the ravenous garden outside, offering tips that are largely unwanted and entirely unasked for, but eventually their sniping back and forth resolves itself into something that almost sounds like civil conversation. If Taako hadn’t witnessed that, he would never have believed it. 

The garlic bread comes out before the main dish, and because Taako is surrounded by heathens, the board is picked clean within a manner of minutes. Then everyone is blowing on burnt fingers and exhaling open-mouthed, since they didn’t wait for it to _cool_ for even like a _second._ When the lasagna is finally ready, it’s greeted with an absurd, collective cheer, and they are officially the rowdiest audience Taako has ever served any meal to.

He _kind of_ loves it.

By the time Angus is on his second mug of spiced hot chocolate, each blink is a bit heavier than the last. He looks like he could fall asleep right there in his plate. Taako would sell his actual soul for a fantasy camera right about now. 

“What was your adventure like?” Angus is asking. “What did you do?”

“Well, we survived,” Merle says, presumably without thinking, like at all, “so at least there’s that. Can’t say the same for _—_ ”

The dishes rattle with how hard Taako kicks him under the table, and Merle winces. Angus sits upright, looking a little less sleepy and a lot more worried. 

“I mean, it was easy as hell,” Merle blurts. It’s not convincing at all. Way to fumble _that_ bluff check. 

“He was just kidding, sweetpea,” Taako says. He reaches over to mess up Angus’ curls, and then frames the side of the boy’s face with his hand. “Not a single thing happened that old Taako couldn’t handle. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Angus is too smart to be so easily disarmed, but Taako has never lied to him about anything important, not even once. He probably wouldn’t even know to factor the possibility of a lie into his calculations. After a moment, his smile blooms back. 

“You did miss me though, right?”

 _Oof._ Okay. So it’s like that.

“If you have to ask me that, you’ve been gone _way_ too long,” Taako says severely. “No more summer camps for you, Ango. Not until you’re at least, uhhhhhhh, forty-seven. That sounds right.”

“Papa forgets how age works,” Angus confides in Magnus. “And time. And, like, days of the week.”

“Sounds like bedtime to me!” Taako claps his hands together. “Last little boy in his room has to do all the dishes in the morning! And I do mean _all!”_

Grinning, Angus hops out of his chair and flies from the room. His progress upstairs and down the hall is audible. Taako levels Merle with a severe look and the dwarf has the good grace to look sheepish about the slip-up.

“I take it someone fucking _died_ while you were out there _,_ huh?” Cat asks slowly. 

“Some _ones_ ,” Magnus amends with a grimace, rubbing the back of his neck. “Wasn’t exactly a banner day.”

“But it’s over now,” Ezra interjects with a commendable amount of good cheer. 

Taako’s two chucklefucks loudly don’t say anything at all, deferring to him at this point. Taako taps the side of his glass with his fingers, wrestling with his natural inclination to deflect and outright lie when it comes to any serious conversation.

He’s worked with Ezra, Cat and Boniface for eight years at this point. He trusts them with his kid, which means he can trust them with anything. It’s worth testing what the voidfish will let him get away with.

“It’s kind of a recurring gig,” he says deliberately. Weighing each word on his tongue, searching their listening faces for any trace of the static. “We, uh, got hired on to sort of…find things. Dangerous things.”

“Okay,” Ezra says, matching Taako’s cautious tone. “Um, why? I mean, why you? And why did you say yes? Just, um…why any of what you said?”

Taako leans forward, bracing himself on his elbows. He puts his serious face on. 

“Look, I’m just pissed off that these things exist at _all_. Like, I’m going to say this and then we’re not going to discuss it or else I’m going to go into a panic spiral,” he goes on, all in one breath, “but what if I sent Angus to the wrong fucking summer camp? What if a bunch of ten-year-olds were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Fucking, just, hiked up a hill and found some dope treasure in a tree or something and that was it? Nope, no siree. This shit is personal now.”

And whoever made these stupid fucking relics could go to hell, quite frankly.

“Anyway, turns out being stupid is something of a natural defense, who’da thunk?” Taako adds glibly.

“Shut up, Teach,” Cat says. Her voice is sharp now. “You raised the smartest kid on the planet. You basically gave me a formal education in the kitchen. You can’t do that _and_ call yourself stupid.” 

Merle whistles low. “That’s _you_ told, bud.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Taako shoots back. “I’m _multi-dimensional._ Now focus up, alright? This conversation has a purpose. It has a design.”

“Just tell us what you _want,_ ” Boniface says with great weariness. 

Taako sits back in his chair. Mainly so that he can put his hands in his lap beneath the table without suspicion. He’s wringing his fingers nervously, because he fucking _hates_ this. The fact that he has good things makes him nervous, like at any moment the universe is going to realize there’s a cosmic imbalance in the scale and make it right again. It scares him to ask for anything extra, to take even a tiny bit more.

“It sounds like this is a gig with a lot of downtime,” Taako informs the house staff. He’s aware of Magnus and Merle watching him, their eyes steady and grounding. “Infrequent trips, short ones. Maybe I’ll need to be gone for a week or so, every so often. When that comes up, I’ll need someone here with the kid.”

The girls and the gardener are staring at him like he’s grown a second head. Taako’s heart-rate kicks up a notch or twelve, racing fast enough to make him feel ill. 

“I’ll work it out with Charlie,” he adds, the words spilling out faster now. “I’ll pay you from my own pocket if it comes down to it. You all have rooms here already. You wouldn’t have to do anything extra, just, just make sure Angus eats and his tutor isn’t an asshole and he knows I’m coming home soon.”

Ezra gets up and rounds the table. She moves so fast that the screech of her chair across the tile is still in Taako’s ears by the time he has an armful of tiefling girl. Her curly ram horn is poking uncomfortably into his neck, but she only hugs him for a moment before she’s yanking back again.

“Sorry, I know you don’t _—ugh_ , that was more for my benefit than yours, I’m so sorry,” she says, and holy _shit,_ her eyes are wet, oh _no_. “It’s just…what are you _talking_ about? You don’t even have to _ask_. If you need us to watch Ango, we will. Of course we will.”

Cat says, “I know I just said you weren’t stupid, but _—_ ”

“Yup, I get it,” Taako interjects. He’s definitely rattled by all of this and it probably shows. “Jeezy creezy, ask a simple question and get a whole production.”

“Like you said, we have rooms here already,” she goes on. “And I don’t think you need to _pay_ us for spending our days off in a _mansion_ that doubles as the best restaurant in town.”

“You need to pay me,” Boniface says shortly. He’s summarily ignored by everyone, except for Magnus, who frowns at him as if to say _we're having a_ moment _, dude!_

“Just make, like, a ton of meals for us before you leave,” Ezra says brightly, leaning back against the table. “Like, twenty of these lasagnas, to last us the whole time you're gone. That would be payment enough.”

“Twenty lasagnas or no deal,” Cat agrees. 

They aren’t the same teenagers they were when Taako first wandered into this house chasing a job on a flyer. He still calls them his girls but they’re bright, somewhat ferocious young women now, who spent the bulk of Angus’ formative years in this house with him, as friends and confidants and the occasional partners-in-crime. They wouldn’t just leave Angus in some faraway room and let him cry, not anymore.

“Twenty lasagnas is just plain stupid,” Taako says haughtily, refusing to admit that he’s touched. “Angus is a growing boy. I’ll make no less than twenty-five.”

It’s not quite a thank you, but it tries to be, and that's good enough. It’s been a long eight years together. They can tell when he’s trying.

* * *

When everyone else is either tucked away in their rooms for the night or dead asleep at the dinner table (Merle), Magnus stops Taako in the hallway. 

“Hey,” he says. It comes out quiet, and he looks a little self-conscious, but he powers through the discomfort in a very trademark way. “I just wanted to say, uh. I’m gonna take this as seriously as you do. Your family here is important to you, and that means it’s important to me. I know that sounds ridiculous, ‘cause we’ve only known each other for like five minutes, but I mean it. And I think Merle would agree with me.”

Taako looks at him, this man who rushed into every room in Wave Echo Cave first to take the brunt of each battle, who ran headlong into fire to try to save a bunch of strangers, who made the bottom of the well and the flight to the moon less scary just by virtue of his presence. 

As far as protectors go, his kid could do a _lot_ worse than Magnus Burnsides. 

“Well, we won’t take it all _that_ seriously,” Taako says, patting Magnus on the chest because it’s a bit of a reach to his shoulder. “We’ve got to think about the brand, you know?”

Magnus’ steely countenance falls away like lightning, replaced by that crooked, roguish smile that heralded half a dozen bad ideas and almost as many victories. 

“Oh, for sure. Priorities: sorted.”

“Good. And, uh.” Taako hesitates, tugging on a piece of his hair fallen from its haphazard bun. It’s hard to say it, but he _has_ to say it. With Magnus, it hasn’t been anywhere near long enough. He won’t know when Taako is trying. “And, you know, thanks. Angus is a good kid. He deserves to be safe, is the thing. Safe and happy.”

Magnus’ expression is warm. He looks like a hugger, this guy, as tactile and affectionate as Taako is _not,_ but he must have learned from that whole scene with Ezra (or maybe the bruised ribs from Klarg) because he doesn’t move in for one. 

He just says, “He’ll need his family for that.”

It hasn’t been long enough, so Taako can’t tell, but it almost sounds like Magnus is saying _You do, too._

* * *

Taako’s things are still sitting outside his bedroom door where Boniface left them. On a whim, he snags the handle of the umbra staff as he passes by, giving it a halfhearted twirl. 

“At least _someone_ around here doesn’t give a shit about my feelings,” he says with a fair amount of sincerity. “If I have to sit through one more heart-to-heart I’m gonna lose my absolute _mind_.”

Predictably, the umbrella has nothing to say. _God_ he appreciates this umbrella. 

The door next to his own is ajar, and he pushes it the rest of the way open without pause. Angus is fast asleep, the glowing book on his chest testament to his attempt to stay awake. Taako dispels the dim Light and lays the book face-down on the nightstand, even though his little nerd will lecture him about the bent pages and cracked spine in the morning. 

And then he just sits there on the edge of the bed, combing through Angus’ riot of curls with his fingers, letting his tired mind wander.

He won’t be like Angus’ parents, who left him in the lurch when they died, or his grandpa, who dumped him off onto somebody else the first chance he got. The people who were supposed to stick around just straight up _didn’t_ , but Taako’s different. Taako is a given. He’s here for keeps. 

He hopes Angus knows that. He’s never once had enough courage to ask. 


End file.
